3 Minute Monday
Hi friend,
I’ve got a favour to ask…
We just hit 70,000 subscribers on the Modern Wisdom YouTube Channel.
I’d do this show even if no one listened.
BUT… Video Guy Dean wants that 100k Subscriber Button for Xmas.
And who am I to deny him.
So let’s see if we can hit this target 🚀
Please SUBSCRIBE NOW ON YOUTUBE – it would make me very happy.
Also share the channel with some friends – hijack an intranet or fire it in a group chat, whatever you do will get us closer to that 100,000 figure. Thank you!
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the promises we make to ourselves.
Having confidence in your own word is crucial in life.
The ability to say you’re going to do something and to believe that you’ll actually do it is a superpower.
Imagine that you had a friend who kept on cancelling lunch dates.
They constantly turn up late or not at all.
They say they’re going to organise a mutual friend’s birthday present and then don’t.
They’re super untrustworthy.
They constantly make excuses for why they couldn’t do it.
After enough broken promises, you’d simply run out of faith that they could ever go through with what they say and you’d stop expecting anything from them.
You might even start to dislike them or be embarrassed of them as a byproduct.
Well you ARE that friend to yourself.
In a very real way we treat ourselves as a separate “other’ with our inner monologue.
And you can easily lose faith in your own word.
How many times have you said you’ll get up at 6am or stick to your diet or not look at your phone or any number of a million other commitments and then not done them.
Death by a thousand cuts can erode away your self trust.
This lack of confidence is hugely destructive.
It feeds imposter syndrome, causes anxiety and melancholy.
If you want to trust your own word, you have to provide consistent, solid examples to yourself of times when you have committed to something and then followed through with it.
Start small. Micro even.
Commit to a promise so small that it would be ridiculous if you didn’t do it.
Do one pushup, read one page, meditate for one minute.
The goal here isn’t the outcome of the activity, it’s the relationship between promise & action.
Even if they’re small, acting on these commitments builds up confidence in your ability to stick to promises you make to yourself.
You say we are going to do something, then you go out and do it.
Over time, your confidence in the promises you make to yourself grows.
Your domain of competence expands out from committing & executing a 20 minute walk, to a hike, to a 10k, to a marathon.
And as you continue to prove to yourself that you can keep these promises, this increase in confidence will seep into other areas of your life.
What does it matter if there’s a catastrophe at work – you’ll deal with it.
Who cares if you’ve got to have an awkward discussion with a friend – you just nailed your 3rd Saturday in a row at a yoga class you never thought you’d do.
Keeping Promises To Yourself is a fundamental principle which forms a foundation for much of your agency in life.
What can you promise yourself today, which you’ll do tomorrow?
MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast which has had 7 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Life Hacks 202 – Jonny & Yusef return to go through our favourite new hacks including iOS14, Netflix recommendations, Instagram hacks, personal saunas and much more.
Thursday.
Konstantin Kisin – fantastic insight into why the world is in chaos from a comedian who saw before, during & after the Soviet Union fell.
Saturday.
Not sure yet. Maybe Robert Glazer on his best tips from running & coaching businesses all over the world to elevate your life & career.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED
1.
Why dogs tilt their heads to listen.
Up/down information for a sound that is coming from directly in front can be difficult to figure out.
The head tilt solves this problem by offsetting the two ears vertically so that sounds from lower down will hit the lower ear first.
In humans almost all of our up/down localisation is done using tiny changes in how low vs high frequency sounds are bounced around in the external ear; we do not use the head-tilt method.
Owls actually have one ear higher than the other so this head tilt is physiologically inbuilt.
2.
Sacking can be funny.
In 1984 the Sun’s editor Kelvin MacKenzie found out that the paper’s astrologer was “recycling his predictions on a quarterly basis”.
He wrote what might be the only example of a witty sacking notice which began…
“As you no doubt will have foreseen…”
[via Richard Shotton]
3.
The universe is here due to a tiny imbalance.
During the first moments of the universe there were only quarks and anti quarks.
30 million and 1 parts of matter for every 30 million parts of antimatter.
This tiny imbalance is the only reason for all the matter now present in the universe.
LIFE HACK
Optimise your lower body in bed.
Bad backs ain’t good.
World famous movement expert & past MW guest Kelly Starrett has a great video which might help you to avoid back pain when sleeping.
Go watch.
Big love,
Chris x
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PS
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